Jerusalem: Returning to Israel after an extended absence can
be a disturbing experience. On the way back from the airport to my Jerusalem
apartment, I noticed new posters tacked onto utility poles and bridges along
the highway. They read: “Transfer = Peace and Security.” The meaning was
unambiguous: Israel must expel the 3 million Palestinians living in the
occupied territories--and perhaps even its own Palestinian citizens--in order
to achieve peace and security.

While racist slogans have become pervasive in Israel, it
was this particular message--the notion of expulsion as a political
solution--that unhinged me. One does not need to be a Holocaust survivor to
recognize the phrase's lethal implications. The slogan, however, does not
merely underscore the moral bankruptcy of certain elements in Israeli society;
it also helps uncover some of the inherent contradictions underlying Israel's
policies in the occupied territories.

From the extreme right (those behind the posters) to the radical left,
Israelis agree on at least two points: The current crisis must be dealt with,
and land is the major issue around which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
revolves. After more than two years of armed conflict, which has left close to
2,500 people dead--including 300 Palestinian and eighty Israeli children--most
Israelis see the situation as hopeless, a view that is, ironically, shared by
many Palestinians.

Israeli hopelessness does not stem merely from the Sharon
government's preference for military action over diplomacy (which despite its
ruthlessness has not stabilized the situation), but also from the fact that
public discourse has been colonized by military calculations, which undercut
the possibility of even envisioning a positive change. The current absence of a
political horizon helps explain why no one greeted the government's
announcement of early elections with any enthusiasm.

Most Israelis appear to understand that the doctrine
advanced by former Prime Minister Menachem Begin and adopted by Sharon is no
longer tenable, namely that the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem would
remain under Israeli sovereignty while the Palestinian population would be
given some form of autonomy without receiving full citizenship. The Israeli
left has rejected this solution for pragmatic and ethical reasons, recognizing
that in Israel's effort to maintain control over the territories it has become
an apartheid regime.

Israel has introduced a segregated road system in the
territories, transforming all major arteries into roads for Jews only.
Palestinian villages and towns have consequently been turned into islands,
hindering the population's access to medical facilities, work and education.
(According to UNICEF, close to a quarter-million Palestinian children cannot
reach schools.) Not surprisingly, the Palestinian economy has also collapsed--a
recent Israeli military report states that between 60 and 80 percent of the
population lives on less than $2 a day.

Israelis on the left and right now realize that the
conflict cannot be resolved under the current conditions, regardless of the
amount of military force Israel employs. A new government will be expected to
come up with new ideas. Although the situation is complex, there will be only
three options from which to choose if we are to break the current impasse.

The first is the two-state solution. Even if the Labor
Party's new leader, former Gen. Amram Mitzna, ends up forming the next
government, which is highly unlikely, it is not clear that he will have the
courage to radically alter the Oslo format. This option, however, will be
viable only if Israel implements a full withdrawal to the 1967 borders and
dismantles all Jewish settlements, which now contain almost 400,000 people.
While this may appear to be an impossible endeavor, one should keep in mind
that when France finally ceded control of Algeria, it managed to evacuate a
much larger number of French citizens.

The second option is the one proffered by the extreme
right: the expulsion of all the Palestinians from their lands, forcefully
transferring them to Jordan, Lebanon, Syria or Egypt. This idea, which until
recently had been marginalized, is gaining broader support among the powers
that be. Polls indicate that the National Union, a right-wing party advocating
expulsion, is expected to receive 10 percent of the vote in the upcoming
elections, and its members are not the only ones who are promoting this solution.

The third option is for Israel to annex the West Bank and
Gaza Strip, bestowing full citizenship on the Palestinian population, and thus
turning itself into a binational state rather than a Jewish one. This solution,
which had been perceived by Palestinians as a betrayal of the struggle for
self-determination, has recently gained legitimacy within the Palestinian
establishment. While the binational option is, in a sense, the most democratic
of the three, within Israel it is still considered an abomination not only by
the right but also by Labor and the liberal Meretz.

If
Israel's next leader is to overcome the current crisis, he will have to decide
whether to abandon the notion of a Jewish state, employ a policy used by the
darkest regimes (not least the Third Reich) or dismantle the settlements and
bring the Jewish settlers back home. Each of these options negates certain
elements of the Zionist project, suggesting that the settlements constitute a
contradiction; they are now destroying the very project that initiated and
upheld them. They have come back to turn the Zionist dream into a nightmare.

Neve Gordon
teaches politics at Ben-Gurion University and is a contributor to The Other
Israel: Voices of Refusal of Dissent (New Press 2002). He can be reached at ngordon@bgumail.bgu.ac.il